Governor Mitch Daniels' recent decision to pass on a presidential run should serve as a warning to all Republican leaders.
Governor Daniels said that his wife and daughters had "veto power" over the decision. But that verbal nod to both family and women was starkly at odds with the anti-women, anti-family, anti-health care agenda that all the Republican contenders are being asked to sign off on as a condition of their candidacy. And voters are noticing -- particularly the independent-minded women who are actually going to be deciding the 2012 elections.
Daniels, we were told by many, is a moderate and levelheaded fellow -- supposedly one of the grownups in the Republican Party. Yet in the run-up to his possible presidential race, Daniels made a decision to follow the right wing in his state's legislature and his congressional leadership in barring federal funding for preventive health care to Planned Parenthood.
It's a decision that was as morally disastrous as it was politically counterproductive. Morally disastrous because thousands of Indiana women rely on Planned Parenthood as their chief health provider. Planned Parenthood of Indiana provided services last year to 85,000 patients, including 21,150 pregnancy tests, 26,500 Pap tests for cervical cancer and 33,000 tests for sexually transmitted diseases. And of Indiana's 28 Planned Parenthood health centers, many are located in rural and medically underserved areas where women have few options for affordable health care.
When Gov. Daniels signed legislation barring Planned Parenthood from providing health care under the federal Medicaid program, 9,300 patients at 28 locations lost services from their preferred provider. In addition to putting the lives and health of thousands of Indiana families at risk, the governor's action is also at odds with federal policy that bans states from discriminating by provider -- and risks the state forfeiting all federal Medicaid funding.
And Daniels act was politically counterproductive because poll after poll shows that voters -- especially women -- understand just how vital Planned Parenthood's services really are. In fact, in a recent set of polls by Public Policy Polling, more than a dozen political swing states showed that women see just how misguided the ideological agenda of those who oppose Planned Parenthood really is.
The polls showed 63 percent of voters wanted to keep funding Planned Parenthood's cervical cancer screenings, 65 percent wanted to keep funding our breast exams, 62 percent wanted to keep funding our providing birth control, and 65 percent wanted to keep funding our testing for sexually transmitted infections. And an amazing 54 percent were less likely to support a candidate -- in this case, a Senate candidate -- who tried to defund our services.
Gov. Daniels isn't alone in misreading the signs of the time. Every last one of the major Republican candidates for president has publicly stated they support the effort to bar federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
No one but Mitch Daniels himself knows exactly why he didn't run. But it's not hard to imagine that he saw just how far off the right side of the road he was going to have to run to get the Republican nomination -- and just how hard it was going to be to find his way back to sanity come the general election.
The conventional wisdom says that Republicans are squandering their supposed 2010 mandate by following an ideological agenda instead of focusing first on creating jobs. It's clear to us that conventional wisdom in this case is right, particularly when it comes to their attacks on basic women's health care.
Planned Parenthood began helping women and families get basic health care and good information 95 years ago. We are now serving more than 800 communities across America. We know a thing or two about what women want. Republican candidates for president may not be listening to us. But women and families are.
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It just doesn't make sense to cut the affordable rout women have to go reproductive care that prevents thousands of dollars in treatment such as cancer, stds, and unwanted pregnancies that they would have to turn to the government for help or die for.
Only in GOP world does it make sense to neglect women's health. Men you know you're next, because while you can get viagra now it's going to cost you later when the war is over if you don't join the women's side. Just because it 'doesn't affect you' now doesn't mean it won't tomorrow.
So, why don't you? If what you do is so valuable, it shouldn't be hard to do... so do it. The Gov. should not be in the healthcare provider or payer business given it's not good at running any business.
We don't have the money for these grey-value propositions, it's simply not the role of Gov.
If you now women who don't vote, explain to them what they will lose. For that matter, anyone who doesn't vote.
"We" are told by whom? The christofascist right?
Daniels actions speak way louder than his words.
What's killing Daniels is his own behaviors.
"I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself."
-- Gen. Robert E. Lee
They're deliberately fielding an unelectable lot of candidates to keep Obama in power, since he does everything they want without wearing their brand. Bush Doctrine continues, and Republicans will also shed House control next year to get to the corporate pay window and ensure they hold no blame for the austerity their man Obama is signing off on and the continued sputtering of our economy it will bring.
Obama equals more war, more tax cuts for the rich, the continued redistribution of wealth upward, and all the GOP has to do to lose is pander extra hard to their base on ideology, which won't even hurt them when they come back through the revolving door in 2014.
Republicans will keep getting everything they want while the shift of party control in the House creates the illusion of representative government.
This anti-woman push has NOTHING to do with principles and everything to do with distracting us from the bipartisan agenda of continuing to strip mine this country and ensure that we're all too poor to challenge the establishment on Wall Street.
Go look it up.
It has nothing to do with the democrat/republican dichotomy. It has everything to do with certain people believing they have all the answers in the world and to hell with anyone who says otherwise.
Cutting funding for Planned Parenthood = "hating" women.
Reducing the federal budget to 2006 levels = "hating" the poor.
Asking teachers to pay part of their insurance = "hating" children.
Asking immigration laws to be enforced = "hating" hispanics.
The faux hate goes on and on.
332,278 is a number which would grab anyone's attention in or out of context.
Planned Parenthood could save itself any time it wanted by referring out abortion services to a provider which accepted no taxpayer funding of any kind. That it is choosing to stand on principle is admirable, but so were the 300 Spartans who held the pass at Thermopylae.
Discretion has generally been though the greater part of valor.
The discussion of abortions is just a convenient way to push through their real agenda.
I am a conservative and I can assure you that I want excellent health care for the poor as well as the middle class. What possible advantage would there be to the Republican Party to have a large minority of the population dying of preventable disease--not to mention incubating epidenics which would spread rapidly to the general population?
It is not the destination which is in question. It is what road we take to get there.
I think that pretty much sums it up.
Indiana is not outlawing abortion. It is insuring there is not even the slightest chance taxpayers will be paying for it.
It's like we're the 2nd Arkansas now
And yes... they have always had so few women and people of color within their ranks that it makes us all wonder. I still recall the cameras panning the crowd at Dubya's primary win in 2000. Mostly all the attendees where white males with a mild sprinkling of women and culturally diverse folks. The GOP is the Grand Ole Party....much akin to the "Good Ole Boy Network".